Space Forum / Shuttle / April 2004

From Dave Fowler:
<snip>

"Doc" Graveline's own website, http://www.spacedoc.net/memoirs.html
paints a clear picture as to why he, as was said, "didn't make it
through jet training" (Jack Schmitt was his roommate at UPT, Williams
AFB) -
______

David: "Do you think that NASA over reacted to the announcement of
your impending divorce while you were still active in the astronaut
corps?"

Doc: "No, I had no problem with NASA's reaction. This was their first
publicized divorce of one of their shining knights. Their reaction was
entirely reasonable and even predictable. What else could they do? I
have to admit that when the publicity came out I felt like someone who
had just received a lethal dose of radiation - I knew I was dead but
was just not sure of when it would happen. After five months I
resigned for personal reasons. It was the hardest decision of my life.
The good news is that it directed me into the busy life of a family
doctor for the next twenty-two years where, as observer, I followed
our space program with heavy heart. Subsequently many astronauts have
gone through divorce but I was the first."

David: "Gene Cernan wrote some derogatory remarks pertaining to your
appointment to the astronaut corps in his book "Last Man on the Moon".
What is your rebuttal to his statements?

Doc: "In case some readers may not be able to recall Gene's exact
words concerning me I will quote what is arguably the most offensive
of his several inflammatory remarks:
[Graveline was possibly the worst choice ever in the astronaut
program, the result of the National Academy of Sciences not doing the
in-depth background checks that NASA had always demanded.]
"I'd like to think that Gene knew better than to make that sort of a
statement. Background checks had nothing to do with it. Sometimes
events in our lives just happen beyond our control. I was just about
to leave for flight training. I had no advance warning that this was
going to happen. Fueled by publicity, it suddenly exploded, far beyond
any hopes of being checked or guided. Of course it reflects negatively
on me, yet I am the same man - still the best scientist astronaut NASA
ever had. I deeply envy those fortunate few who manage to play out
their lives with their first loved. It is truly a blessing."

David: "After leaving the astronaut program, what changes did your
life take and how where you able to best deal with them?"

Doc: "Five months after the ruinous publicity and well into the flight
training program I resigned from NASA officially "for personal
reasons" and took up life again with my family. It was a
reconciliation doomed for failure for every time an Apollo mission
occurred I was pulled more deeply into self-doubt and troubled
thoughts. A year passed and finally, like Thoreau, I moved alone into
my little cabin in the woods of northern Vermont and gradually
regained my footing."

______

______

David: "Since your leaving the astronaut corps, did you ever work for
NASA again in any capacity?

Doc: "Yes. During the Four R&D shuttle flights in the early eighties,
I took a six-month leave of absence from my practice in Vermont to
return to NASA as Director of Medical Operations at the request of my
good friend, Doctor Fred Kelly who, as a Pan-Am sub-contractor, had
been running the health center at the Cape for years. Otherwise my
only NASA contact has been as a regular participant in the
Longitudinal Study of Astronaut Health, getting my annual physical
check-up at Johnson Space Center."

______

~ CT

well, he never actually came right out and admitted he was scared to
fly...but he went on and on and *on* about how he thought it was ridiculous
to accept a one-in-ten chance of getting killed in a jet aircraft when he
was supposed to be training to fly a *spacecraft*.

Apparently it never occurred to him that if he couldn't handle a relatively
simple jet trainer, no way in hell would he ever be able to master an Apollo
spacecraft, let alone *two* completely independent spacecraft (CSM and LM).